Customer Reviews

Samsung P3 Palm Theatre Plus 32 GB MP3 Player (Black)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Best sound quality in an MP3 player. Better than my ipod touch 32gb.
Excellent video and image quality. Easy navigation. Once you can feel the touch, you will never go back to the ipod.

This player has the most amazing sound of ANY MP3 player out there .(I own most of them)
If sound/music is your bag, This is a MUST player to own. You will NOT be disappointed in its' ability to reproduce any album music as they were meant to be heard.
You can read the specs and reviews to/for this amazing player here or cnet. It's all true.
The software package for ripping,etc. has it's issues as does all the other players with their rippers.
I suggest using any other rippers (including Windows Media player 11) instead of the software that comes with this player.
Regardless of what/which MP3 ripper you use, drag and drop to the device works just fine.

I opened the box and was just amazed at the kind technology inside this small and personal mp3 player. The touchscreen is simply amazing. I am used to the way Samsung mp3 players work and have recently owned a Samsung T10 mp3 which had a similar technology with the front buttons that lit up. The capacity of the device is incredible and hope to use it for a long time.
The bluetooth is awesome and more useful than my old T10 because for my headphones I could only control volume with my headset and with the P3 I can control everything. it even can automatically connect to hit!!!
I'm happy with this product and encourage everyone to at least give it a chance. you can even get it cheaper with a refurbished one like I did.

The features made this player look like an ipod killer, and it was for a time being. After about a year of mildly light use, the touch screen became unresponsive for 1/3 of the area. Then after about 3 months later, another 1/3 of the screen died. Google "anythingbutipod forums" and you will see others with the same issue with this player. It's too bad because when it worked, it was awesome. It played all kinds of video codecs & bitrates as well as the DSP for the audio was great. The eq & bass boost was not even needed. Oh well...

I'm not sure why Amazon has sent me an email asking me to rate an item they never sent me. This mp3 player was falsely advertized when I ordered it, it was shown as being in stock. After almost 6 months of waiting for this product and repeatedly being told it was back-ordered, I eventually cancelled the order. I now see it is shown as "unavailable". That was the last time I ordered from Amazon.

Love this player. Plays .ogg & .mp3. You can delete files from player even if not connected to computer. Has return to song and play on power up. Has hold button to disable interface. External speakers - nice addition. I want another one because my battery is getting old. I own 20 mp3 players, hate the rest, Love this one.

Over the past five years I've used a Creative Zen Vision:M and a Cowon S9. The P3 replaced the S9 after it died while my Zen continues to work after all these years. Naturally I'll refer to these players in my review.

The P3 is slightly smaller than the Cowon S9. The screen is the same resolution but smaller which makes it look sharper. The P3's screen certainly does not have the saturation or contrast of the S9's screen and the viewing angle is smaller. Overall, not much of a difference.

The user interface with the S9 is a confusing mess and the P3 is only somewhat of an improvement. It's still a step back from the old Zen's fat buttons and simple intuitive user interface. Unlike the S9, you'll select English options instead of mysterious tiny icons. You'll be able to delete a video right after watching it instead of searching for it in the file browser. The touchscreen is fairly sensitive requiring little pressure but mine has some accuracy problems -- it often hits the selection above or below where I'm pressing.

But there are still many simple things I miss from the Zen. The touchpad volume on the Zen allows you to adjust the volume quickly. Both the S9 and P3 have buttons on the top that you have to mash repeatedly to change the volume, requiring that you hold the unit. The P3's buttons are even worse than the S9's rocker buttons. They're small and behind the front of the screen forcing your fingers to press slightly behind the screen if it's on a table.

While the English menus are easier to use than the splotchy icons on the S9, there are still some things I miss from the Zen. Deleting a video is easier yet deleting a song is harder. You can't just select "delete" while a song playing. You have to go into the Songs folder in the music browser and find the song to delete it. This is can difficult if not hazardous because it will only display the first few characters of the song, ending in "..". If you want to delete a song whose title begins with the same title as other songs in the folder, you will have no idea which one to select. Why is "delete" an option when watching a video but not when listening to a song? It's a completely foolproof interface!

The P3 needlessly added complexity by taking the familiar "pause", "next", and "previous" buttons off the main play screen. You have to tap the bottom to make them appear. This is also true of the very familiar "progress" bar. Unless you tap the bottom of the screen, you won't know how much of the song is left unless you look at the tiny tiny on the lower right of the screen which show how long the song is and how much of it has played. I don't know why they felt these very common buttons and display should not always be on the main screen.

The interface is somewhat slower. Selecting "Songs" in the music browser can make the P3 pause for three or four seconds with 3,000 songs. This is instantaneous with the S9. There is no orientation sensor so all videos will be displayed in landscape orientation. I've had no trouble with videos but I've only played simple Xvid files with MP3 audio.

The P3 plays AAC files which the S9 does not. It also supports OGG/Vorbis and FLAC files like the S9 however the P3 does not support gapless playback.

I've found album art to be an ordeal. If your album art is already embedded in MP3 and FLAC files, you're probably OK. I was used to the S9's very simple feature of displaying any image file that's in the folder of the song you're playing. It was simple to create a folder for each album and throw a cover.jpg in there. The P3 requires all art to be embedded in the files themselves. To make things worse, album art is only supported for MP3 and FLAC files. OGG art is not supported which isn't a huge surprise since it hasn't quite been standardized, but AAC album art is standardized yet the P3 ignores it. It's also picky about the resolution of album art. Files that would always display on the S9 need to be reduced for the P3 or it simply won't display it. If you don't already have art, expect to experiment to find out which art works.

The album art is displayed with a cute darkened reflection on the bottom of the display as if it were on a dark shiny table. This can make the song title, artist and other information harder to read which are already difficult to read due to the small fonts.

The FM radio is not as sensitive as the S9's and about the same as the Zen's. Weak signals require more headphone cord fiddling for good reception.

Like the S9, the P3 will tell you nothing about your files. The Zen will tell you anything you want: the format, the file size, the bit rate, even the number of times the song has played. Since the P3 even hides the file names (it only displays tags), you can't even see the file name to know what format the song is in.

Unlike the S9, the P3 supports multiple playlists however I don't use playlists as much as most people so I'm not qualified to critique that feature.

When the P3 is playing, the display turns off making it look just like a P3 that has been turned off. The Creative Zen simply dims the display reducing power consumption so you'll never walk away thinking it was turned off. Unlike the S9, it does have a timer option to turn itself off so if you're forgetful, you won't have to come back to a dead player.

So, I'm still waiting for a modern MP3 player that still has the simple Zen user interface. I'm amazed at how MP3 manufacturers over the years have found the most complicated ways to do simple things while burying or eliminating simple, useful features that a five year old MP3 player has.

I bought the p3 with some birthday money. the insides were loose and one of the parts came loose and i had to get it fixed. also, i have put videos on there that the p3 supports and it still said not supported format. the only con is the sound quality it is pretty good

This MP3 player is the best I ever had. Not because of its games and web but the sound quality ease of use is wonderful. Best Sound period. The FM radio is not useful. The Bluetooth was a nice feature. The build of the player is good but the screen failed on me so the right side of my screen doesn't respond to touch other than that it is the best MP3 I ever had.

This review refers to the Samsung YP-P3 Firmware version 2.22

As I just found out through personal contact to samsung support, this absolutely great sounding player does'nt have a standard 'shuffle-mode'.

Don't get me wrong: This is a fantastic sounding Player (I use Ultimate Ears Triple Pro Inears) but no shuffle? Ridiculous !

And most covers are not shown even when they're there.

Please read Scotts answer to this post in order to learn the workaround for playing all songs in shuffle mode.

Still: Dear Samsungs: The functionality of your Z5 should be the baseline for your UI!

AND (in the strange hope somebody from Samsung really reads this):

For years I wait for the KILL-Button. The KILL-BUTTON deletes a song that is running while it is running because while listening to it I want to decide to never wanna hear it again. This function is like a skip to next song and delete the last. Software-wise a joke. But would be a big first for everyone to streamline our gigantic music libaries on the go. BIG marketing relevance. and you even don't have to pay me any license for this concept. JUST DO IT !!! :-)